Be Seated

In Be Seated Laurie Olin writes of his long interest in public seating in parks and civic spaces sharing his insights into seemingly ordinary elements of these places and actions of our individual lives and experience along with his concern for the importance and effects of public seating in the conduct and potential of our role as citizens and the establishment of place and community. Discovering both the extraordinary in the ordinary, along with the ordinary in the extraordinary, Olin shares examples of his experience as a landscape architect, and the theory, craft, and role of seating in a number of prominent civic places, historically, and some of those his firm and others have designed. Accompanying the essays are drawings and watercolors by Olin that create a dialogue between writing and image, supplying further richness to the author’s insights and point of view as a designer.